Aston Martin ends F1 Bahrain test early

Aston Martin curtailed its Formula 1 pre-season testing programme in Bahrain as an after-effect of earlier technical issues.

Having switched to a Honda engine supply for F1’s new era, Aston Martin is the only team to use the Japanese power units and has struggled so far.

Regardless of its mediocre pace, the AMR26’s unreliability has been the biggest issue at Sakhir.

The Adrian Newey-designed car spent four hours in the garage on Wednesday due to a power unit issue; when Lance Stroll finally got the squad’s afternoon programme under way, he soon spun into the gravel trap after suffering what looked more like a technical fault than a driver error.

On Thursday, Fernando Alonso encountered yet another power unit problem which interrupted his afternoon session.

The Aston did not make it back on track until around 1:45pm local time on Friday. Stroll completed a handful of laps – with his car demonstrably a handful too, as he suffered a heavy lock-up and an off-track excursion – before the team called it a day.

Lance Stroll, Aston Martin Racing (Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images)

This setback is partly linked to a parts shortage, Honda and team ambassador Pedro de la Rosa have revealed.

“Our last run with Fernando Alonso yesterday showed a battery-related issue that impacted our test plan with the Aston Martin F1 team,” Honda stated on social media on Friday morning.

“Since then, we have been carrying out simulations on the test bench in HRC Sakura. Due to this and a shortage of power unit parts, we have adapted today’s run plan to be very limited and consist only of short stints.”

De la Rosa confirmed Honda’s diagnosis and Aston’s consequent back-up plan.

“Yesterday we had some battery issues on Fernando's car, and therefore Honda is carrying out test simulations in the test bench in Sakura,” the former grand prix driver told F1 TV in the morning.

“Due to this fact, and also the fact that we have a shortage of parts, we will be doing very limited runs today. They will be short, and they will be separated by a minimum of half an hour, so that will allow us to really look into the data and be able to test some things in these few runs. But yeah, we won't be doing long runs today, for sure.”

Stroll indeed ran two installation laps and another couple of two-lap stints, reaching a six-lap tally.

Lance Stroll, Aston Martin Racing (Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images)

This setback compounds Aston’s issues; the AMR26’s 1m35.974s testing benchmark is a whopping 1.4s slower than anyone else but new team Cadillac.

“Definitely, we are not where we wanted to be,” De la Rosa admitted. “We have been the team with [the least] laps during pre-season testing. Obviously, we would have preferred to do a lot more, but despite the fact that we haven't done a lot of laps, we have an enormous amount of data to look into and prepare ourselves for Australia.

“It's a new set of regulations, everything is new. We have a new partner in Honda, new gearbox, new rear suspension. There's so many things, actually, that we already have a very good understanding on, and we really know the places and the areas of the car we need to focus on.

“So it's not where we wanted to be. We would have preferred to do many more laps, but the amount of laps we have done is showing us a direction for the future. So there's a lot of work to be done still behind the scenes.”

Asked whether it might be a tricky start to the 2026 F1 season, De la Rosa replied: “Yeah, of course it will be. I mean, when you start on the back foot, it's always more difficult.

“But, you know, we have great partners. We have Honda, we have a fantastic campus, people working flat out trying to get us to the best possible compromise for Australia. And that's where we only have to work hard based on what we have already learned so far this pre-season, which is a lot, and start from there. It's a long journey, it's a long season as well, but we still have a mission to be completed.”